Join Doug and the Movie Maniac Craig  for another round of Mini Reviews. This time will mutated teens or killer wolves win the battle for your wallet? listen in and find out! Also If you’ve seen these movies leave a comment with your own review.

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Extreme originality, great story elements and a decent plot that makes Lord of the Flies seem like a gentle tropical island romp compared to Chronicle. Been bitten by a radioactive spider recently? Blasted by cosmic or gamma radiation?  Found a giant glowing crystal in an underground cavern? All of these and more are ways to become a powerful mutant, but only one applies in Chronicle, the latest teen “superhero” movie.

Three teenagers, one super popular, another trying hard to be and a third completely out of touch find a perfectly circular hole in the backyard. As teenagers will, they elect to climb into the hole, scramble through a tunnel and come to a very large glowing crystal. The crystal, in some unknown way, grants them powerful telekinetic abilities with which they immediately begin to experiment. The teens, finding themselves growing in power, are soon playing tricks on people, moving cars and even flying.

Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan), the popular teen, manages to take it all in stride rejoicing in the fun of telekinesis. Matt Garetty (Alex Russell), the teen trying hard to be popular, struggles with the moral and ethical ramifications of power and what rules need to be in effect. Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan) embraces the power and becomes intoxicated with it. His sociopathic tendencies lead him to the conclusion that he is an “apex” predator.

Not a pretty thought. Andrew, bullied all his life, becomes the ultimate bully. You’ll have to watch the rest of the movie to see the results. The movie that comes to mind is Carrie. Carrie, under her mother’s thumb, pushed around and teased by the other children and finally humiliated in front of the school unleashes the fury. I would suggest being nice to the disenfranchised youth…you just never know when they will manage to get ultimate power!

Chronicle is X-Men with a twist: it’s supposed to be real and director Josh Trank and his young cast add just enough oomph to make it seem so. This is a pretty good film and deserves a look. I would suggest seeing Chronicle in the theater for it needs the big screen for the full impact.

Rating 3.5 out of 5.

The Movie Maniac Craig has emerged once again from his theater lair! Listen in and find out how mixed martial arts star Gina Carano fared in her acting debut. Leave us an email or comment about your thoughts on this movie.

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Mark Wahlberg and Kate Beckinsale star in a remarkably average film on smuggling. Wahlberg as Chris Farraday, a legendary smuggler, is retired. Farraday‘s security business seems to be taking off and he is now completely legit. Unfortunately his brother in law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) is not. Andy is actively, if incompetently, attempting to smuggle cocaine. Predictably, the ship with the cocaine gets boarded and Andy and his buddy must toss the drugs overboard, leaving him in debt to a particularly sleazy drug dealer named Tim Briggs (Giovanni Ribisi).

Of course, Wahlberg must “heroically” rescue Andy from, the verging on insane, Briggs. What complicates matters is that Briggs, while Bryce is actively seeking to find the money to pay him, begins to threaten Kate Farraday (Beckinsale) Chris’s wife. Why Briggs thinks this will help escapes me. Farraday is aboard ship and it can only go so fast. Why would you want to infuriate the man bringing you your money. Frankly, I would have flown home and killed Briggs myself…or hired someone instead and kept the money.

To further complicate matters a third party is waiting for the money from the drugs but Farraday is planning to bring counterfeit 20 dollar bills to sell, not the drugs. What makes this somewhat convoluted plot to a screeching halt is simple: if someone is bringing you over seven hundred thousand dollars to replace the street value of the drugs you lost, what does it matter if it’s in cash or cocaine. The value is the same and you have none of the risk. I find it damn near impossible to believe that the very practical business man waiting for the cash would have minded. There are worse plots but this one certainly was up there. So ludicrous and so contrived that the movie completely lost me.

I cannot fault the performances but I can fault the writing and directing. Wahlberg’s performance is solid, Beckinsale’s certainly fine with what’s she’s given but Ribisi’s is stilted, perhaps because of the one dimensional character with which he’s presented. Very unfortunate because I love his work. There are a few twist and turns that are good and Ben Foster turns in a typically fine performance as Wahlberg’s best friend, Sebastian Abney, but it’s not enough to save Contraband from mediocrity.

There was never much of an attempt to develop any of the characters and the entire film is lacking in chemistry. The sad truth is…this could have been a very good film had they taken more time to develop our relationship with the characters, made the plot more logical and added in some fun. I dislike films that are all disaster. And Contraband certainly is.

My recommendation is: see this film when it comes to Netflix, pick it up on HBO or Showtime or maybe someday, when you least it expect it, it will be a late night feature. If you miss it, don’t worry a similar film will be out soon…

Rating 1.5 out of 5.

Once again Craig took one for the team! Have a listen your wallet may thank you.

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The Movie Maniac is back with another mini review! Should you stay or should you go? Only the maniac knows. Listen in and let us know what you thought of these movies.

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Join Doug and Craig for mini reviews of We Bought A Zoo, Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows and The Adventures of TinTin. What did you think of these movies? Leave a comment or send us an email! We’re always looking for input and potential co hosts! We’d like to thank jewelbeat.com for our closing music.

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